Unscripted politics rules

In one respect, at least, the culture and politics of the United States have achieved a perfect yin-yang balance. At a time when Arnold Schwarzenegger has broken in to west-coast politics, politicians on the other side of the country are climbing over each other for bit parts in a new TV drama.

But this is not your average, predictable, feelgood, prime-time show. It is a peculiar, unscripted experiment in which well-known politicians improvise scenes with paid actors in front of wobbly hand-held cameras.

The show's maker, pay TV channel HBO, says K Street portrays politics "from the inside out". It follows a semi-fictional firm of Washington lobbyists (a sub-species that dominates the real K Street, a concrete-and-glass boulevard bisecting the city centre). You see deals being done and politicians being primed and prepped before going into battle.

"The show is really about showing the process," says co-producer Henry Bean. "How the deals are done, how provisions are put into bills."

So why should politicians with enough savvy to get themselves elected make themselves such hostages to fortune by appearing on the show? The answer comes in two words: George Clooney. He is not only co-producing the show alongside his favourite director, Steven Soderbergh, he is wandering the streets of Washington and wielding a camera in pursuit of inner political truths.

"Everybody in town is buzzing about it," says Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz, who was recruited for a K Street cameo. "But also wondering whether anyone in the other 50 states could care less."

That is the dilemma now facing Clooney, Soderbergh and HBO. The Hollywood-Washington love affair dates back to the days of JFK. The only people who really impress movie stars are powerful politicians, and politicians covet the near-hysterical worship that only showbusiness celebrity can inspire.

"People love these guys around town," says Ronald Brownstein, chief political correspondent of the Los Angeles Times. "People love the fact that what they are doing is glamorous and sexy enough that George Clooney should be there in a $2000 ($A2900) suit filming it."

"I think he does open a lot of doors," says Bean. "But George is also extremely knowledgeable and sharp. He wears his fame very lightly. Every Monday morning we sit in a room and we generally have a few ideas and we pick one to be the topic of that week's show. There are maybe a dozen people there, and George is one of them."

Even K Street's stars are real people: former Reagan aide Michael Deaver and Washington's extremely odd couple, James Carville and Mary Matalin. Carville is the cantankerous "Ragin' Cajun" who orchestrated Bill Clinton's electoral triumphs. His wife, Matalin, is a right-wing Republican who was, until recently, Dick Cheney's press adviser. Now they play loose approximations of themselves, running the consulting firm at the heart of K Street's action.

Swapping lines with the actors who play their employees, Carville and Matalin even give a good impression of their testy marriage. After an on-screen row, Matalin tells someone looking for her husband: "James Carville is not here. And he may never be here again." ("That is exactly how they really talk about each other," marvelled an acquaintance.)

This is what Clooney and Soderbergh are aiming for: fiction improvised by real people so that it edges into the realm of docudrama until the viewer starts to question what is fact and what is fiction.

After the theme of the week is decided, the writers put together a loose structure and some dialogue for the actors, and two days are spent shooting mostly improvised scenes. The results are edited almost until the last minute before the Sunday-night screening. Not everyone in Washington has been prepared to play along. Congress got Clooney and the K Street crew locked out of the Capitol, on the grounds that they were pursuing a commercial venture. However, the stream of willing politicians has continued to flow.

It is without doubt Washington's favourite parlour game this US autumn. The question mark remains, however, over whether it is of much interest to the rest of the country. The first of the 10 episodes was savaged by critics. USA Today called it "a pointlessly rambling inside look at Washington's spindocracy - a self-contained, self-satisfied group of political hangers-on who are fascinating to each other and of no interest to anyone else".

Bean concedes that K Street is still trying to feel its way to a new genre as it goes along, and that the producers are now struggling to redress the balance between realism and plot.

But even if it can be turned into compelling drama, what will it do for US politics? Not much, Brownstein fears: "It's not a great idea for politicians when people don't believe a word they say to start blurring the lines between politics and Hollywood. You're asking for trouble."

Bean says K Street is working on the problem. "I actually think Ron's (Brownstein) put his finger on something that is a real danger for the show. One of the things that are wrong with American politics is that so many people are doing it for money. We have to show that people are into it for other things. There are very idealistic and ideological people, and it is extremely important that we convey the depths of passion there. That is something we are in danger of missing."